After decades of mostly sterling
coaching (Bowden’s career record is 359-117-9, Paterno’s 354-117-3, the best two
won-loss columns in history), is that really a valid
disqualification?
Ask LSU. Talk about contributing to
the legends. The Tigers are a combined 1-8-0 against the coaching giants, 0-1
against Paterno, and a nettlesome 1-7 against Bowden – who came within a
touchdown of bringing his magic to Baton Rouge instead of rubbing the Tigers’
noses in the dirt of Tiger Stadium. Six of his victories against LSU came in
“Death Valley,’’ a place that seemed to kill
the spirit of the home team at the very sight of Bowden’s visiting
Seminoles.
How much of that, any LSU fan would
have to wonder, would have changed had the Tigers scored one more touchdown in
their first game against Bowden, in 1979, or if Jesse Myles hadn’t fumbled at
midfield just before the half of that game, Charlie McClendon’s last as head
coach of the Fightin’ Tigers.
Trailing 13-7 at that juncture,
Seminole quarterback Jimmy Jordan took immediate advantage of the sudden gift
and hit a streaking receiver for a touchdown to take a one-point lead a minute
before intermission – the key sequence in an eventual 24-19 Florida State
victory, one that changed the course of LSU history. Indeed, Southern football
history.
Bowden, the roly-poly football
mastermind who transformed Florida State from a rag-tag program into one of
the country’s strongest, had made up his mind he was going to be the next LSU
coach if his best Seminole team to that point, unbeaten in six games, could not
beat the 4-2 Bayou Bengals.
Then-Tiger athletic director Paul
Dietzel had assured the LSU faithful he was going after “the best coach
available’’ to replace McClendon. The best coach available was Bowden, and
Bowden was more than interested. “I always kind of lusted after LSU,’’ he said
more than a decade later. “That’s one of those real good lookin’ jobs that
catches everybody’s eye, and Coach Dietzel kind of let me know it was mine if I
wanted it.’’
He did want it, sort of, and had
made up his mind that’s where he was going if his Seminoles came up short
against LSU. “My thinking was,’’ Bowden admitted more than a decade later, “that
with the best team Florida State ever had up to that time, if we couldn’t beat
just a pretty good LSU team, then we never would. I’d have to consider going
where I felt I could win consistently.’’
Myles’ fumble paved the way for the
FSU victory – considered at the time to be the biggest in school history, and
one Bowden said showed him “what we could do at Florida State.’’
The Monday after the game, Bowden,
who felt he had to kill all the speculation that he might leave, signed a new
five-year contract with Seminoles. Since then, of course, Florida State won a couple of national
championships and has constantly been at or near the top of college
football.
There were career and
program-altering ramifications at LSU, too. Assuming Bowden would have any
degree of the success Bowden had at Florida State, Dietzel would have been hailed as
an administrative genius and probably would have retired from LSU around 1990
with accolades and warm and sentimental regards. Instead he hired largely
unknown Bo Rein from North
Carolina State, who was killed in a plane crash 42
days later, setting into motion a whole new series of events, including hiring
former Tiger hero Jerry Stovall.
Dietzel, vulnerable after not
getting his “name’’ coach and after a couple of so-so seasons under Stovall, was
bushwhacked by a politically-motivated chancellor and board, who replaced
Dietzel with Bob Brodhead – ushering in a whole new era of shenanigans at
LSU.
Bobby Bowden left his footprint, a
large one, at Florida State – and at LSU.
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Marty Mule’ can be reached at
MJM981@Bellsouth.net.